Saturday, May 4, 2013
Globe, London; Minerva, Chichester; Donmar, LondonColin Morgan from Merlin is Ariel, bringing his smooth magic to the South Bank. Limber, honey-voiced, swinging from a lintel, he is eerily s…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, April 27, 2013
Olivier, LondonThese days it's becoming hard to write about the theatre without praising Nicholas Hytner. Can't he do something wrong so that we critics can start looking less like courtiers…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:07PMBattersea Arts Centre, LondonLittle Bulb is the cause of big joy. The larky, lyrical company, most of whom graduated from the University of Kent only five years ago, have taken over BAC with…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, April 20, 2013
The Shed; Lyttelton, LondonNicholas Hytner's departure is not the only change under way at the National. By the time a new artistic director arrives in 2015, large swaths of the once controv…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:08PMNuffield, SouthamptonWe're living in an era of strong and radical Chekhov productions. We've had them from Benedict Andrews at the Young Vic, Russell Bolam at Southwark, Andrew Hilton a…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, April 13, 2013
Royal Court, London; Royal Exchange, Manchester; Phoenix, LondonIt's a tribute to Nicholas Hytner's mighty reign at the National that the news of his standing down outshone, or outdarkened, …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, March 30, 2013
Noël Coward; Royal Court, LondonJudi Dench begins tight as an oyster, encrusted with age and depression and disappointment. She opens and lightens and unstiffens as she remembers the dance …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:05PMSaturday, March 23, 2013
Women are finally getting the chance to make a massive impact in the arts, argues the Observer's theatre criticThis is the difference that a woman at the top of an arts organisation can make…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:06PMSaturday, March 9, 2013
Gielgud, LondonWell, I didn't believe in it but I was seduced by it. At least for a while. The Audience – the first surefire, unstoppable hit of the year – has been created to disarm all…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMButetown, Cardiff"People think we're pirates but we're actually poets." Welsh Somalians living in Cardiff's Butetown – the docks area once known as Tiger Bay – wanted to show the truth o…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, March 2, 2013
Theatre Royal, Bath; Donmar Warehouse, London; Tobacco Factory, BristolLet's forget AA. Let's not put African American in front of August Wilson's name. Instead let's acknowledge that he was…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, February 16, 2013
Viaduct, Halifax; Stratford East; Roundhouse, LondonShe wrote under initials so that no one would know she was a woman. She died thinking her playwriting career was a failure. In New York sh…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, February 9, 2013
Young Vic; Somerset House; Almeida, LondonFeast: yes. But fast, too. I've rarely seen anything so bursting with visual ideas, so thrumming with interesting sounds and rhythms and so skinnily…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, February 2, 2013
Harold Pinter theatre, LondonIt looks like a wheeze at first, a publicist's gamble to get people to pay twice for the same evening. Yet the double casting of Kristin Scott Thomas and Lia Wil…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:07PMLyttelton, LondonA new version of A Doll's House, an updating of Ubu Roi, a triumphant, West End-bound adaptation of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Before that: wild swer…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMWyndham's, LondonAt first the casting of Rowan Atkinson looks perverse. In fact it's inspired. The truly startling stroke in Simon Gray's 1981 play is that it makes its main character a void…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:03PMSaturday, January 26, 2013
Royal Exchange, Manchester; Hampstead; Tricycle, LondonWith what varied meanings the word "pals" winds through Peter Whelan's 1982 play. This is a drama full of warmth between both women and…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMFrom the Foxes to the Redgraves, the Observer's theatre critic Susannah Clapp chooses the most celebrated acting familiesSusannah Clapp
SOURCE: The Guardian at 09:00AMSaturday, January 19, 2013
Royal Court; Trafalgar Studios; Platform; LondonPolly Stenham's feral families are at the heart of Dominic Cooke's Royal Court. First, in 2007, the bullying child and alcoholic mother of Tha…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, December 29, 2012
Discover Children's Story Centre; Cottesloe; Little Angel; LondonLong before the Olympics there was drama in London's Stratford. It was here in the 50s and 60s that Joan Littlewood and her e…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, December 22, 2012
Crucible, Sheffield; Trafalgar Studios; Battersea Arts Centre, LondonI thought my resistance to My Fair Lady had hardened. I don't like plays sentimentalised by melody, or cockneys singing w…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:09PMSaturday, December 15, 2012
Noël Coward; Royal Court; Tricycle, LondonMichael Grandage is setting out to change the West End. He wants to provide a theatre that is both tempting and affordable. His Michael Grandage Co…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMThe scientific met the psychological to scintillating effect, and hard times called for Shakespeare and Chekhov2012 was a year in which Britain depended on the theatre to show itself off to …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 04:00PMSaturday, December 8, 2012
Donmar, London; Curve, Leicester; Bristol Old VicAlways fascinating, sometimes infuriating, Phyllida Lloyd's all-female production of Julius Caesar is one of the most important theatrical ev…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:04PMSaturday, December 1, 2012
Menier Chocolate Factory, London; Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon; Trafalgar Studios, LondonWhat a difference a time scheme makes. Had Merrily We Roll Along been written with a conventional chrono…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, November 24, 2012
Almeida, London; Apollo, London; Olivier, London The Dark Earth and the Light Sky is a rarity. It startles by stealth and apparent quietness, by its steady appeal to unashamed affection and …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:05PMSaturday, November 17, 2012
Cottesloe; Southwark Playhouse; Gate, all LondonFluorescence, mental disturbance, dancing. The Effect has some of the ingredients that made The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMSaturday, November 10, 2012
Lyttelton; Noël Coward; Vaudeville; LondonAlan Bennett's sparky, intricate, all-over-the-place new play opened in the week the National Trust announced it had bought the white cliffs of Dov…
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMLyttelton; Noël Coward; Vaudeville; London Continue reading...
SOURCE: The Guardian at 07:06PMTheatrical treats for all the family for the festive seasonSusannah Clapp
SOURCE: The Guardian at 11:01AMSaturday, November 3, 2012
Jerwood Theatre Upstairs/Jerwood Theatre Downstairs, Royal Court, London SW1Enron, DC Moore, Clybourne Park, Nina Raine, Posh, Anya Reiss, Love and Information, Polly Stenham, Sucker Punch. …
SOURCE: The Guardian at 08:01PM 
